


Hot Time in the Town of Berlin (When the Brooklyn Boys Begin)

by looktotheskies



Category: Captain America (Comics), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Amputee Bucky Barnes, Bisexual Bucky Barnes, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Cosmic Cube nonsense, F/M, First Kiss, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Homophobia, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Post-World War II, Sexuality Crisis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-06
Updated: 2018-10-06
Packaged: 2019-07-25 20:16:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16204898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/looktotheskies/pseuds/looktotheskies
Summary: Right there, in that moment, sitting among rocks and broken bits of stone with this complete and total stranger, Steve knew that he was about to do something incredibly stupid--even by his standards.---Berlin, 1946. The Allies have won the war, and Steve Rogers is finally beginning to fall back into a normal life with his best girl at his side. So why does he feel as though something’s missing? Maybe that’s why, against every ounce of his better judgment, he takes in the one-armed Soviet soldier he finds wandering the city ruins.Inspired by the 1948 film The Search.





	Hot Time in the Town of Berlin (When the Brooklyn Boys Begin)

“ _So if you wanna be an alright guy, not a long face, blues-in-the-night guy,_ ” Steve Rogers sang out cheerfully. He had been called in for a quick meeting to sign some papers for both the Army and the SSR this morning. It had taken all of ten minutes, and now he had the rest of the day to do as he pleased.

His time overseas was finally seeming to be coming to an end. Things were wrapping up for Captain America, and Steve suddenly found himself with a lot more free time on his hands. He waved at the gate attendant as he rolled through the security barrier on this beautiful sunny day under German skies.

The attendant--Agent Lugo, he was pretty sure his name was--snapped a salute and nodded as Steve drove by, never suspecting the Sentinel of Liberty to be moonlighting as a smuggler.

For the past few weeks, Steve had taken to driving through the ruined city, anonymously dropping off smuggled Army rations outside of distribution centers. The Army had plenty to spare. Citywide rations in the American sector were stretched thin: barely more than 1200 calories a day for every person. Agent Carter, his very favorite SSR agent, had told him that the situation in the British sector was far more dire.

“ _When you quarrel, da daaa da da da. Pass that peace pipe and bury that hatchet! Like those Choctaws, Chickasaws, Chattahoochees, Chippewas._ ” Today, Steve had a whole five crates of rations stashed in his Jeep.

He had seen a few troops sneaking bread or canned ham and vegetables when they thought no one was looking. Most had the same good intentions as Steve. Others, though, took advantage of the situation, offering a desperate girl a meal in exchange for a good time. The papers back home called it “frau bait.” A crude name for a wretched practice.

If one of these men ever happened to be dumb enough to brag about his exploits within earshot of Steve, he made sure to find them later and convince them, one way or another, to never do it again.

They may have been vile, poor excuses for men, but they were also smart enough know that reporting Captain America for “conduct unbecoming” was a fight they were never gonna win. Any bruises they happened to be sporting later were explained away as having been earned during a drunken brawl with a buddy.

“ _And those Chakootamees, Chepacheps ‘n’ Chicopees, Chocktohs, Changos, Chattanoogas, Cheekarohs, doooo!_ ”

Save for those few assholes, Steve was very happy with his place in life at the moment. The fight had long been over. All that was left was clean-up and reorganization. He had his best girl to go home to, a roof over his head, a loving mother across the ocean he wrote often, telephoned when possible.

He pulled up behind the first distribution center and swiftly dropped off two crates before anyone could spot him. And then it was onto the next one.

Steve whistled while he worked, and it wasn’t long before all the crates were gone and safely awaiting discovery. He visited three places today, and he wished he could’ve gotten six crates to make it even, but oh well. Another day.

He made sure to take it slow across the bridge over Teltow Canal and enjoy the view. The sun was climbing higher in the sky and reflected brightly on the surface of the fast-flowing water. The road took him into the industrial area of the city. Lots of factories and workshops lived here once.

He found a long empty stretch of road, pulled the Jeep to the side, and killed the engine. This was his routine now whenever he wasn’t needed around for official business. Morning food delivery, a drive through the city, lunch, maybe a walk in the afternoon, sketch, more driving and walking.

“You already saved the world. You can take a break, Steve,” Peggy had told him when she caught him stowing a box of rations in his truck. He had shrugged, and she had just smiled and didn’t press him on it. He knew damn well she was running her own little secret operation over on the British side.

It was a comfortable routine, and Steve looked forward to his drives through the city. He took a new route every day to see as much of Berlin--the American sector’s piece of Berlin, at least--as possible. It was calming, and it allowed him to meet the locals.

Two days ago, he had come across a group of three children hiding in the tall grass along the canal. Steve was sat on the hill with his sketchbook in hand, lightly shading in the shadow on the water of the bridge upstream, when he heard rustling from the bank. Three little heads suddenly appeared among the green. They were timid but curious, and the trio carefully made their way closer to Steve. The two boys spoke Polish and Czech, and the girl spoke French. The mix of languages told Steve that they had likely run away from a nearby UNRRA camp. He couldn’t understand what the boys said, but the girl told him that she liked his drawing. Steve quickly sketched in the three children on the bridge, legs dangling over the water, hands curled around the railing. He drew them with smiles on their faces as they looked down at their reflections. He tore the page out, and the tallest boy, the Czech, quickly snatched it up and held it over his head as he began to run. The other two yelled and laughed and chased after him, and then they were gone.

When he had returned to base late that afternoon, Steve had called the nearest UNRRA camp and asked if they were missing any children and gave them a description and location. All he had left to do was hope that they would be found.

Steve kicked his feet up on the dash and unwrapped his modest lunch of two sandwiches. As he did, he idly wondered if UNRRA would call back if or when they had an update. It had been two days. How many homeless children could there be wandering the city? Steve already knew the answer: too many.

He was shaken from his musings by movement in his side mirror’s reflection. He turned around to see a man emerging from the doorway of the bombed out building he was currently parked just ahead of. The man’s cropped dark brown hair, a deep auburn where it caught the sun, was uncombed, falling forward over his forehead. He was tall and well-built, a muscled frame evident beneath the raggedy, threadbare clothes. Judging from the way the man carried himself, he was in the military; Steve would bet money on it. He wasn’t wearing a uniform, and the Army may have been a mess, but there was no way they would manage to lose a whole entire person, so Steve knew the man couldn’t have been American. Former Wehrmacht? Displaced from another country? Did he reside in this sector, or had he wandered in from the British, French, or Soviet areas?

As if the man knew he was being watched, he turned his head in Steve’s direction. But there was no recognition there. He looked directly through him, his eyes glazed over, staring at nothing. And Steve recognized the emptiness in the man’s eyes. He’d seen it in his men. He’d seen it in himself on more than one occasion.

Before he really knew what he was doing, Steve hopped out the Jeep and started making his way towards the man, food in hand.

The man didn’t notice Steve coming towards him. Or if he did, he didn’t care. He took two steps before sitting down heavily in the dirt. He leaned his head against the wall, shoulders slumped, curling into his left side. Was he hurt? He looked entirely exhausted, as if he hadn’t slept in ten years, and this patch of rubble was the first spot he had found to rest in all that time.

Steve stopped and took his own seat in the dirt, being sure to leave a healthy amount of space between them. “ _Hallo_ ,” he said. The man shifted his head ever so slightly in Steve’s direction. He didn’t appear hostile, and he didn’t seem like he was going to run. “ _Hungrig?_ ” Steve asked, holding out a paper-wrapped sandwich. He didn’t know a lot of German, but he knew enough to get by.

At this, the man turned to face him completely. There was a bit of alertness in his eyes now as he stared at Steve, scanning him up and down, analyzing him.

The two men sat and stared at each other for a moment: the man assessing, Steve observing.

Up close, Steve could see that the man was quite the looker. He had light blue eyes shadowed by a strong brow, framed by dark circles that stood out against his pale skin, a defined jawline covered in a few days’ worth of stubble, and a cleft in his chin set beneath lips that were pressed in a thin, hard line. Dirt and dust clung to the fine sheen of sweat down his neck.

Finally, the man seemed satisfied with whatever he found--or didn’t find--in Steve, and he reached out to take the small offering from Steve’s hand. As he leaned over, Steve saw that the man was missing the entirety of his left arm beneath the shoulder.

The man tore the wrapping off and shoved the sandwich in his mouth. Steve let him get through half of it before saying, “ _Ich heisse Steve Rogers_.” The man paused in the middle of taking another bite. “ _Wie heisst du?_ ”

He didn’t answer, and Steve thought that maybe he should try his approach in another language. But then the man frowned, eyes widening with panic, and his chest began to quickly rise and fall. “ _Ich...ich weiss...nicht. Ich weiss nicht. Ich errinere mich nicht._ ” His voice was low and raspy, as though he hadn’t spoken at all in his ten years of unrest.

The man couldn’t remember his name. Steve held his hands up and assured softly, “ _Okay. Es ist okay_.” He ran his tongue along his bottom lip and thought of what to call the man other than The Man. “ _Soldat?_ ” He raised his eyebrows, silently asking for an okay.

The man nodded. “ _Soldat. Ja_.” He returned to his sandwich, eating much slower than before.

The two fell back into silence. The soldier finished eating and crumpled the paper wrapping in his clenched fist. He let himself rest against the wall again, eyes sliding shut. The frown was still evident on his face.

Steve decided to press his luck with another question. Hopefully, this one would have a better response. “ _Kommst du aus Deutschland?_ ” And that was about the extent of Steve’s German. Maybe he knew less than he thought.

The soldier shook his head. He cleared his throat and answered, “ _Rossiya_ ,” with a rolled ‘r’, easily slipping out of a German accent and into a Russian one.

So he belonged to the Soviets. Steve was unexpectedly disappointed by this knowledge. He was going to have to arrange for them to come and collect their forgotten soldier. How had he ended up over here? How long had he been missing? Were they looking for him?

He shoved these questions aside for the time being and thought over his Russian. It was weak, but he figured things would be easier for the soldier if he tried to communicate in his native language. “Okay. _Ya_...will take... _vas v...Sovet--Sovetku--Sovetsk?--Soviet zonu_.” Very, very weak, but he’s sure he got his meaning across.

The soldier’s eyes shot open wide as dinner plates, and he sat up ramrod straight. “ _Nyet! Pozhaluysta, nyet_.”

Steve kept saying the wrong things to this man. He looked at the soldier, with his half-raised hand, his eyes no longer empty or alert, but wild, dancing between Steve, Steve’s Jeep, the road, and the odd civilian shambling along now and then.

Right there, in that moment, sitting among rocks and broken bits of brick and stone with this complete and total stranger, Steve knew that he was about to do something incredibly stupid--even by his standards.

He stood and extended a hand to help the soldier up. “Come on,” he encouraged with a small smile. The soldier eyed Steve’s hand warily.

“ _Gde?_ ”

“Home.” The soldier recoiled and looked like he might take off in the opposite direction, to put as much distance between himself and the strange American as he possibly could. Steve quickly gestured to himself, tapping his chest. “ _Moy dom_.”

It was a very long moment before the soldier made his decision. Steve thought that he was gonna refuse and disappear into the city, and if that was what the man decided to do, Steve would have let him go.

But then the soldier nodded. He reached out, took Steve’s hand, and used it to pull himself up off the ground. As Steve led the way back to the Jeep, he couldn’t help but look back over his shoulder to check that the soldier was still there and hadn’t decided to disappear.

When the soldier stepped up to the passenger door, Steve shrugged off his jacket and draped it around the soldier’s shoulders. “I can’t be bringing in random people off the street. So for the next twenty minutes, you wear that and pretend you’re an American soldier.” He clapped the soldier on the shoulder and opened the door for him, shutting it behind him after the man climbed in.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Steve realized that this is exactly how you treat dames when you take them out on a date. The thought probably would have made him laugh if he wasn’t buzzing with nerves and excitement. Steve had done plenty of foolish things in his military career, but this was gonna top them all and outshine them by a mile.

“Hang on a minute,” he said before dashing off to a small spot of green nearby. There were wildflowers growing here, and Steve wanted to pick the very best one. When he saw a particularly lovely one, a pretty little cream-colored thing, he carefully plucked it from the earth and returned to the Jeep.

He got in the driver’s seat and held out the flower to the soldier, who squinted quizzically at him. Steve made a cupping motion with his other hand around the flower. The soldier reached out his upturned hand and took the flower between his middle and ring fingers before rotating his wrist, flower safely shielded in his curved hand.

Then Steve turned the key in the ignition, and they were off to break all sorts of rules and regulations.

Thankfully, the drive home was quiet. Every time Steve looked over at the soldier, he was dutifully protecting the wildflower currently in his care.

Steve turned onto a road that led into a residential district, and here he began to see more uniforms walking the streets. Soldiers and SSR personnel were scattered throughout, set up in abandoned houses and exactly one hotel.

In the heart of the district was the place that he had been calling home for the past few months. Him and Peg were staying in a little two-story house with a pale sunny yellow exterior and lots of windows to let in the natural light. It even had flower boxes under the windows. It wasn’t the worst place to live out his last days in-country. Steve had wanted someone else to have it, but the SSR insisted that Captain Rogers had earned something nice.

He parked in front of the house, hopped out, and ran around to open the soldier’s door. The idea of a first date popped in his head again, and this time he snorted at the absurdity of the entire situation. Here he was bringing home a fella, and that fella was holding a flower that Steve had given him, and he didn’t even know the fella’s name, and oh God what was Steve doing?

Steve ushered the soldier inside the house and directed him to the sitting room. It had a door that he could use to conceal his big surprise. He dashed to the foot of the stairs and shouted, “Peggy?” before following the soldier into the sitting room. He pointed at a chair by the large picture window. The soldier sat down, and Steve crouched so that he was level with his face. He smiled warmly at the man and told him, “Peggy’s nice. You’ll like her.”

He straightened and looked about the room. The curtains were drawn to let in the sunlight. Steve’s book was still on the coffee table, just where he’d left it last night. Nothing was out of place except for the dirty stranger in the armchair. He realized he still hadn’t heard a response. Maybe Peggy wasn’t home.

Steve quickly crossed the room and yelled again, louder this time, “Peggy? Hey, Peg!”

“What is it?” she called down from upstairs.

“I brought you something.”

He smiled at the man one last time as he shut the door. The man nodded the tiniest of nods in response. Steve saw that he was still holding the cream-colored flower. He raced over, retrieved it, and closed the door just in time to hear Peggy’s shoes on the stairs. He stood straight and clasped his hands behind his back when she appeared on the landing, doing his best to look as serious as he could.

Peggy paused on the landing. Out of the corner of his eye, Steve saw her smirk before mirroring his oh-so-serious expression. She marched down the steps and strode towards him, steps full of purpose and confidence, arms swinging freely, dressed in her SSR-issued uniform, hair neatly brushed out in waves. Agent Peggy Carter was a presence to be regarded and respected.

He would never tire of seeing her like this.

She turned sharply on her heel in front of him and waited barely half a second before commanding, “Well? Come on then, I haven’t got all day.” A momentary twitch of her lips betrayed Peggy’s no-nonsense demeanor.

Steve dropped all airs and presented the little wildflower to Peggy with a smile. She immediately softened, face brightening at the sweet-smelling offering.

“It’s lovely. Thank you,” she breathed when Steve gently tucked it behind her ear.

He stepped to the side and swept his arm out wide towards the door. “That wasn’t the ‘something’ I was talking about.”

Bemused but amused, Peggy swung the door open and took one step inside before stopping. “Hello.” Steve didn’t hear the soldier respond. “Thank you, Steve, but you alone have the fight and stubbornness of ten men; I don’t need another.” Peggy leaned back from the doorway to look at him. “Who is he?”

“I don’t know.”

She turned back to address the soldier with a polite, “Excuse me,” before quietly shutting the door. Stepping closer to Steve, she lowered her voice to ask, “What does he want?”

“I don’t know.”

She frowned and tilted her head at the lack of explanation she was currently getting from Steve. “Where is he from?”

The look on Steve’s face was the only answer Peggy needed but, clearly, not the one she wanted. She sighed and placed her hands on her hips. “Why don’t you tell me what you do know?”

“I know that he needs our help. You saw him. Tell me I’m wrong.” Steve raised an eyebrow, a silent challenge.

She sighed again, softer this time, and admitted, “You’re not wrong.”

She started to move back towards the door, but Steve’s next words stopped her. “I also know that he’s a Soviet soldier.”

Peggy’s head whipped around so fast, Steve felt a light breeze in the air. “You can’t be serious.”

He raised his shoulders to his ears and opened his mouth to answer, but nothing came out. Peggy closed her eyes and massaged her temples with her fingertips. She exhaled one long, slow breath.

“Oh, Steven, my darling. What were you thinking?”

He let his shoulders drop heavily. He had an honest answer to this question, at least. “I wasn’t.”

She opened her eyes and smiled wearily at him. Steve smiled brightly back at her, and she rolled her eyes. Peggy walked over to stand in front of the door behind which sat a problem that Steve had ungraciously dropped into their lives.

“So he’s a Soviet citizen. So, really, you do know where he’s from,” she mused, mostly to herself.

Steve stood behind her and stared over her shoulder at the dainty pink and blue flowers painted on the door. “I suppose, yes, I do know where he’s from _originally_ \--Russia, said so himself--but I don’t know how he ended up in our sector.”

Peggy didn’t respond immediately. Then, “You may not have your shield on you, but I am currently armed. Do you know that?”

Her thinly veiled threat made Steve’s chest swell with love.

She continued, “But why not take him back to his sector immediately? Why bring him here?”

Steve crossed his arms and took a step to stand beside her. “I suggested it. You should’ve seen his reaction. He doesn’t wanna go back there.”

“Deserter?”

“Something tells me he’s not.”

Her finger tapped lightly against her waistband. “He’ll have to go back eventually.”

“I know.”

“But for now,” she said slowly, pursing her lips, “this shouldn’t be too difficult. He can stay here.”

Steve practically jumped in front of her and placed his hand on the back of her head. “I knew you’d understand,” he said before leaning down to kiss her.

Peggy kissed him back in earnest and smiled sweetly up at him. “The ‘we’ part will have to come later, however. Right now, I’ve got to go to work.”

He stepped back, and she moved around him to pick up a hefty stack of folders on the table by the front door. “Have fun.”

She replied, “Oh, how could I not?” while lifting the folders in the air, putting on an exaggerated grimace under the weight.

As she opened the door to step outside, he stopped her with a question. “You speak Russian, don’t you?”

“ _Da_.”

“Anyth--” Steve started, but Peggy swung the door shut behind her without looking back.

Alright. She wasn’t going to make this easy, and Steve deserved that. But that didn’t mean this was going to be hard.

He knocked softly on the sitting room door and opened it slowly. The soldier waved, and Steve smiled. A wave was already a good sign that things were improving. The soldier had relaxed further into the chair since Steve had left him there, appearing more at ease.

A change of environment could do wonders.

Steve crossed his arms and leaned against the doorway. “That was Peggy. I told you she was nice. She actually has to go to work right now, but she’ll be back later. So what do we do until then?”

“ _Ich weiss nicht_.”

“I know you don’t know. Say, how much can you understand of what I’m saying?”

“ _Ich weiss nicht_ ,” the soldier repeated.

Not much, apparently. “You gotta give me something here, or this is gonna be a long day. I don’t know Russian. And I exhausted my knowledge of German already.”

The soldier frowned before stating slowly, “ _Ich wei_ \--”

“ _Ich weiss nicht_ , I know.” Steve sighed and pulled a chocolate bar from his chest pocket. He peeled back the foil and broke off a piece, holding it out to the soldier. “Do you like chocolate?”

The soldier took the chocolate from Steve and began to eat it, staring questioningly up at him.

“Yes?” he asked, smiling wide and nodding. “Or no?” he asked, switching to a frown and shaking his head from side to side. “Anything? Yes, no?”

The soldier continued to stare at Steve.

“Okay. Let’s just try again later.” He sat down on the loveseat and stretched his legs out. Maybe they could both just go to sleep and forget about the world for a while.

But then the soldier said something that made Steve forget all about sleep. “Yes.”

“Would you look at that! Now we’re getting somewhere.”

The soldier leaned back and folded his arm behind his head. He looked so tired still, but he didn’t close his eyes. He watched Steve instead. Not analyzing, not questioning, just quietly watching.

Steve sat back and studied the man in front of him. “So what do I call you? Can’t go around calling you ‘Soviet.’ That’s gonna turn some heads. ‘Soldier’ isn’t too bad, but it’s a little impersonal.”

The soldier raised his eyebrows at Steve’s searching gaze but said nothing.

“Red? No, too much in the same vein. Gary, Cary, Harry?” Steve smiled when the soldier wrinkled his nose at the suggestions. “Nah, you don’t look like a Harry. How about...” he trailed off, thinking hard. Steve slumped forward, dropping his elbows on his knees and resting his chin on his fist.

The soldier stared back patiently. A ghost of a grin played at the corner of his mouth. He seemed amused by Steve’s conundrum. Well, good for him then. Wasn’t like Steve had a whole of mess of things to worry about now that this man was here in front of him.

Of course, the mess was no one’s fault but Steve’s own.

“I think I’ve got it. Joe. Just another Joe Blow. Innocuous enough that nobody’s gonna be asking more questions than they have to.” He held out a hand in greeting. “Pleased to meet you, Joe.”

The corner of the soldier’s mouth lifted higher, and he returned the gesture with a firm, solid handshake. He pointed a finger at himself. “Joe.” Steve nodded, and Joe’s eyes brightened, grin widening into a brilliant smile. He turned his finger towards Steve. “Steve Rogers.”

Steve nodded again, and the pure joy on Joe’s face was infectious. This was the first time Steve had seen the man smile, really smile. It was a good look on him. “An ordinary name for an ordinary guy.”

Joe started searching for something in the room. His eyes landed on a pitcher of water on the end table next to the loveseat. He pointed to it and asked, “ _Voda?_ ” When Steve nodded, he got up to pour himself a drink.

Steve watched Joe. He heard the clink of glass on glass as the pitcher tapped the cup. He listened to the quiet swish of the pouring water. “But you’re not ordinary, are you?” he mused out loud to himself. Joe turned around at the comment, but Steve shook his head and waved it away.

Joe gulped down his first glass and started in on another. Looking at the water, Steve thought that a shower was in order. He left the sitting room, motioning for Joe to follow. “No, go ahead and bring it,” he said when Joe set his glass on the table.

They went upstairs and down the hallway, Steve pointing out rooms on the way. The first door on the right was the bathroom, then his and Peggy’s bedroom, and across the hall was an office. At the end of the hallway was a door that led to the attic.

He went into his bedroom and dug through the dresser for a fresh change of clothes. “We’re practically the same size, so that’s nice. Won’t have to worry about getting you anything new.” He presented the stack of clean clothes to Joe, exchanging them for his now empty glass. “You can just share mine.”

Steve grabbed a spare towel from the linen closet in the bathroom and left Joe there to get washed up.

***

“Peg, you’re not gonna believe this. Come on,” Steve said, tugging her up the attic stairs.

“What are you on about? Why are you manhandling me when I’ve barely had time to take a breath?” She swatted at his hands, but she was smiling the whole time.

“Joe, come on, you gotta see. He’s so smart.” He opened the door, and Joe was sitting at the table across which was a mess of magazines and torn pictures and ads that he was currently sifting through. Scraps and bits of paper spilled over onto the floor. Joe smiled and waved at Steve and Peggy.

“Hi. Joe, is it? Oh, you’ve made quite the mess,” she said as she stepped over the trash.

Instead of answering, Steve tugged her to the table and pointed at the wall. He and Joe had pinned up different random things from Steve’s stash of magazines. Steve stepped closer to the wall and tapped on a picture of an umbrella before turning to Joe.

“Umbrella,” Joe answered. When Steve moved to an ad for cigarettes, “Cigarettes.” And they showed off for Peggy again and again. “Deer. Train. Fence. Dog and cat. Sewing machine.”

Steve turned to Peggy and said, “We could keep going, but he’s not a dancing monkey.”

“That’s brilliant! All in a day? You didn’t need my Russian at all,” she exclaimed, beaming brightly at the both of them.

Joe got up and walked around the table to hold his hand out to Peggy. “Evening, ma’am. How are you?” His words had a hard accent tied to them, but he spoke clearly and confidently.

She shook his hand, taking a closer look at the man before her. “He seems like an entirely different person from this morning. Are these your clothes?”

“Isn’t it wonderful?” Steve answered. He had taken the little radio from the kitchen and moved it into Joe’s new attic room so that he could have some music once in a while, and he ran over to it now and turned it on. An upbeat song in a swinging tempo played through the speakers. Steve dashed over to Peggy and swept her up in his arms.

Joe stepped back and laughed, watching Steve spin Peggy around the untidy little room. Steve didn’t know the words to this song, but he _da da-da-ed_ his way through it and took this beautiful woman in a circle around and around again until they were both dizzy and out of breath.

Against all common sense, Steve had made a very good decision to bring a stranger into his home today.

Steve was very, very happy with his place in life at this moment.

***

The days passed by in a blur, and Steve could hardly remember them. He, Peggy, and Joe fell into a comfortable existence with each other under the same roof.

Steve went on with Joe’s lessons, and he was lightning quick all the while. In what felt like no time at all, Joe was able to hold a conversation at the dinner table. It put Steve’s grasp of German and very sad bit of Russian to shame.

At least Steve still knew French.

Peggy had a mission coming up with the SSR, and she was likely gonna be gone overnight or longer. Steve didn’t envy her, but he did resent the fact that she would be able to see a couple of Steve’s buddies from his old unit.

The morning she was to depart, Steve got up early and went through the arduous task of making breakfast for everyone. Nothing fancy: fried eggs, Spam, and toast with choice of jam or marmalade.

As he was buttering the slices of toast, Steve could hear noise upstairs, letting him know that Peg and Joe were both up.

Before long, Joe made his appearance in the kitchen. “Smells good. You made food?”

“Yep. Go on and get as much as you want.”

Joe piled a plate high with food and sat at the table, but he didn’t start eating. Instead, he picked up one of Steve’s books and quickly thumbed through it. He set it down and flipped through another, then one more. They were all in English, of course, and Steve suddenly wished he knew where to get something, anything, in Russian. Joe picked up a fourth book, but he lost all interest in it upon seeing Ella Raines gracing the front page of the issue of _Yank_ he’d just uncovered. She was dressed in a sparkling gown, sat on something satiny, with her hand draped carelessly across her leg. She was gazing at something off-camera, eyes half-lidded. Her picture elicited a shrill wolf whistle from Joe.

Steve figured now was a perfect time for today’s lesson. He reached over and slid the magazine to the center of the table. Pointing at the beautiful actress, he said, “Woman. _Zhenshchina_. You remember?”

“Yeah,” scoffed Joe. Steve bit back a smile at the indignation in his voice.

“Gal like that, that’s what we call a dame. But you gotta be careful who you say that to. Not all women like being called dames.” Steve tapped the magazine. “Woman. Dame. Lady. Pretty lady.”

Joe nodded easily. “Woman. _Dama_. Pretty lady.” He looked at the cover of _Yank_ while he talked, and Steve could see that he was biting back a smile. Then, Joe turned to him with a glint in his eye. “Pretty boy,” he said, tipping his chin towards Steve.

Steve’s heart skipped a beat, and he was sure that it was just the shock of being called “pretty” by this man who was hardly more than an acquaintance. He couldn’t help but smile at the compliment. A heat crept up his neck, spreading across his cheeks and up to his ears. It wasn’t the first time he’d gotten a comment on his looks. He had met plenty of gushing girls during Captain America’s USO tour. Some had even brought their fellas, who often quipped about how wild their girl was about the guy who knocked out Hitler.

But this was different. Joe was different. Steve hardly knew a thing about him. He knew that they had fought on the same side of the war, maybe even on some of the same battlefields. They were both trying to find peace and a sense of normalcy in a post-war life. For Steve, that was reason enough to trust anyone. Even so, you didn’t just go around telling your brothers-in-arms how good they looked. Not while they were sitting across from you at the breakfast table, at least.

And the way that Joe was looking at him--still with that same glint in his eye, a soft smile gracing his lips--set Steve’s heart aflutter. It brought back memories of palpitations in a sickly body. This old familiar feeling in Steve’s chest was once nothing more than a nuisance and a great discomfort. Now, it was uncomfortable in only the very best way.

Maybe the Soviets had some novel ideas on this sort of thing. Or maybe this was just Joe’s personality shining through. Whichever it was, Steve thought that maybe it wasn’t so bad. Being told you’re handsome by a handsome man? Where was the harm in that? Women were always showering compliments upon one another. No reason this had to be any different.

Steve chuckled to himself and shook his head. “I’m not pretty.”

“You are,” Joe argued.

“Maybe. But men don’t usually use ‘pretty’ when referring to each other. Handsome’s the word you’re looking for.” He waved his hand, gesturing between the two of them. “We’re a couple of handsome men, you and me.”

“You think I’m handsome?”

“Very,” Steve affirmed emphatically with a sharp nod.

Joe laughed and responded, “Thank you,” at the same moment that Peggy strode into the kitchen in fatigues and heavy boots, hair pulled back from her face.

The spread of food gave her pause. “You didn’t put the kettle on?” were the first words out of her mouth.

“I made you this great breakfast all on my own!” Steve cried in defense.

She remained unimpressed. “And here I thought you could multitask.”

Steve tossed a couple pieces of toast on a plate and crumbs went flying. “I did when I made breakfast,” he huffed under his breath.

He heard her laugh and run water into the kettle.

“Breakfast is good,” Joe offered.

“Someone around here appreciates me.”

“Mm-hmm,” was all Peggy gave in response. Steve heard the click of the stove and soon there was a kettle set to boil.

Steve made his own hearty plate of food and let his elbows drop heavily on the table, letting Peggy hear the indignation in his bones, fighting back a chuckle.

It was only after Peggy had a cup of tea in her hand that she came to the table. She leaned down close to Steve’s face to murmur, “I do appreciate you.”

He mimicked her with an, “Mm-hmm.”

Peggy snorted and moved to give Steve a quick kiss on the cheek. At the last second, Steve turned his head and met her lips with his. It was an entirely chaste, brief kiss, but Joe gave another low wolf whistle before throwing his head back in laughter.

Peggy broke the kiss and leaned her elbow on Steve’s shoulder. Looking at Joe, she commented, “He is certainly something, isn’t he?”

Steve could only answer with a shrug and a grin.

Joe’s laughter died down, and he smiled at Peggy, full of mischief and confidence. His eyes darted to Steve, and he swiftly winked before turning his attention back to Peggy.

Steve didn’t know what Joe was about to do, but that wink told him it was nothing good.

Joe licked his lips and drawled, in a voice that was absolutely dripping with charm, “Afternoon, pretty dame.”

Steve inhaled sharply as his jaw hit the floor. Oh, Peggy was right. Joe was certainly something. But what that something was...

He looked up and saw that while his jaw was on the floor, Peggy’s eyebrows were on the ceiling, her mouth forming a small ‘o’. She turned to Steve and said, “Teaching him the essentials, I see.”

“No,” he protested. “That’s not--I didn’t--I mean, yeah, but...he wasn’t--Joe!”

Joe was having the time of his life across the table. He had collapsed into laughter again, head thrown back, eyes crinkling at the edges. That was fine, that was just fine and dandy. It was great that this was so wonderfully amusing to him.

It did make Steve happy to see Joe so happy, though.

“Thank you for breakfast, darling.” Peggy pressed a quick kiss to the top of Steve’s head. “I’ve got to take it on the go, though,” she said while she stuffed eggs and ham between two slices of toast. She downed her tea and shoved the sandwich in her mouth as she left.

“Give my love to Jim and Dum-Dum! Stay safe!” Steve shouted.

She poked her head into the room and answered, “’Keh!” around a mouth full of food.

***

“Here, take a look at this,” he said, sliding the magazine over to Joe. It was open to a full-page print of the Brooklyn Bridge at dusk. The sun was low, hidden behind the darkened city, painting the sky and the surface of the water in a wash of pinks and oranges and purples. “That’s Brooklyn. _Moy dom_. My home.”

Joe ran his finger along the slope of the bridge wires. “Pretty.” He looked up at Steve. “Where’s Brooklyn?”

“New York City. Big place. It’s made up of these divisions called ‘boroughs.’ Brooklyn’s one of ‘em, and it’s the only one that really matters.”

A soft laugh came from Joe, and he pushed the magazine back to Steve. “Put it up,” he said with a jerk of his chin towards their picture wall.

Steve took his time tearing the page out, being careful not to rip or mar the beautiful scene. He took a tack and pinned the page to an open space of wall beneath an ad for Ovaltine.

“Pretty,” Joe said again. He had turned in his chair to watch Steve, and he was now resting his head along the back of the chair, eyelids drooping shut. “Tell me about it. About Brooklyn.”

Steve gently tipped Joe’s chair back, sliding it and Joe away from the table. “I could go on for hours. But it’s late, and I can tell you’re sleepy.”

“Me? Sleepy? I’m--” and then a yawn interrupted his protests. He lifted a shoulder lazily and let it fall.

Steve nudged him with his knee, prompting Joe to get up and go to bed. He dropped onto the mattress, bouncing and rolling over to the wall, shifting and wiggling and squirming, and just making a big show of it all. When he finally seemed comfortable, he patted the bed next to him and cooed, “Tell me a bedtime story about Brooklyn, Stevie.”

Steve snorted at the big goofy grin on Joe’s face, and he just couldn’t refuse. “Sure thing, Joey.” After turning the lamp off, he laid down on his back beside Joe and laced his fingers together, letting his hands rest on his chest. Silver light shone from the quarter moon through the gauzy curtains. He turned his head to look at Joe and found Joe looking at him, grin slowly fading into something softer. “You’re stupid, you know that?”

Joe barked out a laugh and responded, “Thank you.” Then he turned onto his back, copying Steve’s position, fingers absentmindedly drawing circles on his sternum.

Steve’s voice took on a light lilting tone, and he began to weave a tale. “Once upon a time, there was a fair maiden by the name of Sarah. She had a heart as big and deep as the ocean. One day, she fell in love with a handsome man named Joseph, a strapping young soldier with courage and conviction unmatched by all of the boys of Brooklyn.”

“They have a son and call him Steve?” Joe’s voice crackled low with fatigue in the back of his throat.

“Don’t interrupt me if you wanna find out,” Steve admonished, dropping his storyteller voice for a moment. He continued, “The lovers were married, and soon after, Sarah and Joseph had a bouncing baby boy. They decided to name him Steven. Unfortunately, Joseph never got to see Steven. The young soldier was sent off to war before the boy was born, and he perished on foreign soil.” Steve heard the rustle of bedsheets, and he knew that Joe was looking at him. He kept his eyes trained on the ceiling. “Then it was just Sarah and Steven in Brooklyn. As the little boy was growing up, he found that he very much enjoyed making pictures on the newspapers his mother discarded. And so Sarah gave Steven his very first sketchbook at the age of six, and he spent most of his time honing his skills so that he might become the greatest artist the borough ever did see. That didn’t work out, but some say that to this day, Steven still enjoys drawing from time to time.”

“Yeah? He good?”

“I dunno, maybe.”

“Regular Norman Rockwell.”

Steve had a quick laugh at that. “Sure. Steven doesn’t paint much anymore, though.” He heard Joe hum in response, and he went on with the story. “Mother and son loved to visit Prospect Park. They would make a day of it. Pack a lunch, enjoy the sunshine, stroll across every bridge in the park. But they could only do this every once in a while. Steven loved nature, but it used to not love him.”

“Sneezing?”

“Sneezing, wheezing, coughing, you name it.” Steve turned to smile at Joe, but his eyes were closed. He rolled over on his side to face him. “Then Steven grew up and got stronger. But that’s a story for another day.”

“Sarah go to Prospect Park when Steven’s not there?”

“Sometimes. Not often. She says it’s just not the same without her son to keep her company. She spends most of her time at the hospital. She’s a nurse, been one her whole life, and there are always more and more patients to look after.”

Storyteller Steve didn’t continue, and they laid in silence.

“The leaves should be changing soon,” Steve mused aloud, wistfulness creeping its way into his voice.

Joe’s eyebrows wrinkled at this, and he flicked one eyelid open before muttering, “Steven’s been away from home a long time.”

“It’s been a while.” He punctuated his answer with a shrug in hopes of downplaying the homesickness that came every now and again when Steve got to thinking about his mom and Brooklyn. About the cold winters and breezy summers. The Friday afternoon trips to the drugstore to buy candy with spare change saved during the week.

All the sidewalks and back alleyways he used to pick losing fights on.

Joe watched him for a long moment before closing his eyes again. “Steven has his mother’s heart. And his father’s--what did you say?--cuhn-vick-shun.”

“Steven likes to think so.”

They both fell into silence again. Steve thought that Joe was falling asleep. But then, “Tell me more. What do you see?”

“You mean like what’s there to do?” Joe hummed an ‘mm-hmm.’ “Well, there’s all the touristy stuff, the things people are gonna take pictures of, you know. The bridge, of course, it’s used as a backdrop all the time. And we have this big arch on the Circle--on the north side of Prospect, actually--a Civil War monument. The Brooklyn Museum is a big draw. It’s an art museum with all kinds of collections. Ancient Egyptian, Degas, O’Keefe. Norman Rockwell, too, as a matter of fact.”

“Do you go?”

“No. Always wanted to. Never found the time, I guess.”

“Hmm.” Then, “What about the not touristy places? Where do you go?”

“Coney Island,” was Steve’s immediate answer. “It is _the_ place to be in the summer. Beach, boardwalk...lotsa beautiful babes,” he said slyly, picturing all the good-looking people in their swimsuits and sunscreen, ice-cold Coca-Colas or ice cream cones in hand.

Joe snickered into his pillowcase. “Important things.”

“Who needs a Ferris wheel and rollercoaster when you can people watch?” Laughter bubbled up from Steve’s chest and hung in the back of his throat. “Yeah, Coney Island’s fun. Other than that...I guess I didn’t really go anywhere all that often.”

“Never found the time,” Joe said, more of a statement than a question.

“Yeah, something like that.” Which was part of the reason. What Steve didn’t tell Joe was that it was really ‘cause he didn’t have a whole lot of friends. There were a couple guys he’d pal around with at school, but in the evenings and on the weekends, it was really just him and his mom.

Laying here with Joe, Steve felt...he couldn’t find the word for it. The natural and oddly familiar way they could joke around together. How comfortable they were in each other’s space. He was happy, obviously, but there was something else there. Then Steve realized what it was.

Nostalgia.

He felt light and carefree with a boyish ease that he hadn’t felt in years. He was suddenly sixteen, stupid and silly, staying over at a friend’s. Here he was, reliving a memory that had never happened.

Joe’s breathing started to slow, and Steve took this as his cue to leave. He carefully sat up and swung his legs to the floor, making as little noise as possible. He walked softly, but he still heard Joe shift behind him.

“Where are you going?”

“You were asleep, Joey.”

Joe stretched and rubbed his hand across his eyes. “You ever sleep the night at a friend’s? Do you leave in the night?”

It was almost creepy the way Joe echoed Steve’s thoughts.

“Alright. Give me one of your pillows.” He tugged the blanket free from the end of the bed, wrapped it around himself, and took the pillow from Joe’s hand, placing it at Joe’s feet. He positioned himself comfortably on his half of the mattress. “Don’t kick me in the face.”

“What?” Joe asked, lifting his foot at the same time. He let his heel hang in the air before dropping it on Steve’s chest.

“Don’t--”

“What?” he repeated while lifting his other foot and letting it fall, ankles crossed.

Steve groaned loudly, and he heard snickers from the opposite side of the bed.

“Sleep tight,” Joe whispered in the dark.

When Steve woke up the next morning, Joe was already up. He found him in the kitchen with a bowl of oatmeal, feet propped up on the table. There was a bowl on the counter waiting for Steve.

Joe had his nose in one of Steve’s books, and that set the mood for their entire morning. Joe worked his way through a book, Steve returned to his current read, and they both got lost in their respective stories.

Steve resurfaced when his stomach started grumbling. “I’m getting something to eat. Want anything?”

“An apple!” Joe called after him.

“You got it,” Steve answered over his shoulder. He grabbed his tin of crackers and an apple for Joe, lightly bouncing it up and down.

When Steve walked back in the room, Joe readied his hand to catch. At the same time, they both heard a vehicle pull up outside the house. The driver honked twice, two quick short beeps.

“I’ll bet that’s Peggy,” Steve said. He tossed the apple to Joe, who easily caught it, shined it on his shirt, and acted like he was inspecting the fruit.

Then, just as Joe was gonna take a bite, a deep booming bellow of “ROOOGEEEERS,” came from outside. Loud and maybe just a bit obnoxious, but it wasn’t at all threatening.

The two men jerked their heads towards the shout. Joe looked over at Steve with a crooked grin and said, “I’ll bet that’s not Peggy.”

Steve dashed to the window and pulled the curtain back. Outside, he saw Peggy in the driver’s seat of a Jeep, reaching in the back and grabbing her ruck. With her were two of Steve’s Howling Commandos, his very dearest friends. Jim Morita was hopping out the passenger seat, smiling wide while shaking his head and complaining, “I thought we were gonna surprise him, Dugan.”

And the man who had yelled Steve’s name, Dum-Dum Dugan, was standing by the trunk, twisting from side to side at the waist, stretching his arms overhead. “What’re you hollering about? We did surprise him.”

And what a wonderful surprise it was. Steve was overcome with happiness at the sight of his Army buddies.

Dum-Dum continued as Steve turned away from the window, “What, you think he was expecting dear darling Peggy to come home sounding like that?”

He heard Peggy laugh in response, a bright, tinkling sound. He raced to the front door, waving to Joe on the way. “Come meet my friends!”

Steve swung the door open just a little too hard, because he heard it bang into the wall, and he knew immediately there was gonna be a hole. But that didn’t matter at the moment. His feet hit the pavement, and then Jim and Dum-Dum were whooping and hollering.

“How the hell you been, Rogers?” Jim asked when Steve was closer, holding his hand out. Steve took it and pulled his friend into a hug, clapping him heavily on the back.

“I’ve been great. Peggy didn’t work you too hard, did she?” he said with a quick wink to Peg. She had one leg up on the wheel well and was leaning her elbow on her knee, watching these big dumb men with a big ole smile.

Jim grabbed at his lower back, pitched forward at the waist, and hissed sharply before straightening and falling into a fit of laughter.

Dum-Dum came sauntering around from the back, looking Steve up and down. “Well,” he said and hooked his thumbs into his belt loops, “don’t you look like shit.”

“Dugan!” Steve barked. “You are in the presence of a lady, ya goddamn miserable bastard,” and then he pulled him into a hug, too.

Steve really had missed these idiots.

“Hey, Joe,” Peggy said, and Steve spun around as he realized he hadn’t yet introduced his new friend to his old friends.

Joe was standing a polite distance away, using his hand to shield his eyes from the sun. Steve ran over and slung his arm across Joe’s shoulders, leading him towards the group.

“Dum-Dum, Jim, this is my friend Joe. Joe Burgess.” Steve had ‘Blow’ on his mind and said the first B name that popped in his head. He caught Joe side-eyeing him for a quick second before Jim stepped forward and offered his hand. Joe took it and returned a solid handshake.

“Good to know you. Who’d you piss off to get stuck in-country with the captain here?” asked Jim.

Dum-Dum dipped his chin to the empty space beneath Joe’s shoulder. “Yeah, the Army ain’t send you home yet? You must’ve spit in a general’s eye or something.”

Dum-Dum could always be a bit too forward for some people, and Steve wasn’t sure how Joe would take it, but he seemed to be enjoying himself. His shoulders were relaxed, his eyes were bright, and he was leaning comfortably into Steve’s side.

“I don’t know what happened. Steve’s not so bad, though, so things aren’t too awful.”

“Say, I’m detecting a bit of an accent,” Dum-Dum said and waggled his finger at Joe. That harsh Eastern European ‘h’ and rolled ‘r’ were still present in Joe’s speech, though they had softened considerably through his and Steve’s lessons.

Jim rolled his eyes. “Oh, are you? Great observation skills, Sherlock.”

Joe nodded and breezily lied his way through an explanation. “Son of immigrants, what can I say? I’ve been trying to shake it, but I guess it still needs some work.”

Jim turned his face to the sky and put his hand in front of the sun. “Before Dum-Dum says the next thing that pops into that tiny brain of his, how about we go inside? It’s hot out here.”

“Gilda’s right. And it looks like Peggy already beat us to the idea,” Dum-Dum agreed, pointing to the picture window. The three men turned around and saw Peggy wave at the lot of them before disappearing behind the curtain.

Steve led them inside, where they crowded around the kitchen table and enjoyed an easy lunch of ham sandwiches and swapped stories back and forth about their crazy antics during the war. How Jacques loved to test fate by smoking while swinging explosives around. Gabe’s and Dum-Dum’s bet that they could outdrink Steve. And the ugly aftermath the next morning. Monty’s deathly serious lectures about proper tea brewing temperature. To this day, Steve wasn’t sure whether he was pulling the group’s collective leg or not.

When Jim got up from the table for a glass of milk, Steve saw the opportunity to ask him for a favor. Steve tapped him on the shoulder and asked, “Can you help me out with something?”

“Sure thing.”

Steve led Jim upstairs to the office and stood by the desk. When Jim saw the radio set, he took on an offended tone. “Aaah, so you’re putting me to work. I’ll still help, because it’s you, and ‘cause that’s just the kind of guy I am. It would sure be nice to go one day without someone asking me to fix something. I haven’t actually experienced it yet, but, boy, wouldn’t it be nice,” he rambled on as he planted himself in front of the radio. “So what’s wrong with it?”

Steve grinned and went on to explain, “I keep getting interference from this one source. Actually, I’m not so sure that it’s interference.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Like I said, it’s one source. I can’t understand him, but I’ll usually hear the same guy--”

“Wait, so we’re talking about a person? You sure it’s not some SSR yahoo?”

Steve shrugged. “I don’t think it is. I could be wrong, but I just don’t think that it’s someone messing around.”

Jim filled his lungs up with air and exhaled it all in a loud sigh. “Alright. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank. You’re a real pal, Jim.” Steve clapped him on the back and made to leave.

“Uh-huh. A real pal wouldn’t put his other pal to work, cap’n!” Jim crowed, and Steve laughed all the way down the stairs, where he ran into Joe.

“Hey. Everything alright?” Steve asked him.

“Yeah, yeah. Just taking a moment. Dum-Dum’s...a lot.” Joe tilted his head back and leaned his arm against the banister. Steve nodded and stood here with him. “Hey, why did Dum-Dum call Jim ‘Gilda?’”

Steve chuckled to himself and shook his head at his friends’ nonsense. “’Cause he’s stupid. Morita became Rita, which became Hayworth, and then that turned into Gilda. Do you know _Gilda?_ ”

“Please, who doesn’t?”

Later, they both returned to the kitchen with Jim when he came downstairs. He let Steve know that he rewired some connections, and the radio should receive signals more clearly from now on.

“I’ve actually got a message from some major? Didn’t catch his name. Said he’s your CO? Came through just as I was finishing up. Wrote it down for you,” Jim explained and handed him a folded slip of paper.

Steve hung back and read the message scrawled in Jim’s angular handwriting: _Congrats, Rogers. Orders came. You and Carter to head home. Pack your bags. 6 days._

He shoved the paper in his back pocket and shelved his concerns about the state of his affairs. Manly giggles from Dum-Dum, harsh snorts from Jim, quiet chuckles from Joe, and Peggy’s bright chortles soaring above all of them reached him from the kitchen. For now, he wanted to enjoy his time with his friends.

When the evening was closing in, Peggy had to excuse herself and the two Howlies. Quick business to sort out over at the SSR before the day was over.

Dum-Dum and Jim walked with Joe outside, sharing a story about the time Falsworth shrieked like a dame when being chased by a chicken.

Steve lightly pulled at Peggy’s elbow before she could follow. “I need to talk to you.” His lips were set in a hard line, and his throat was tight.

“What’s wrong? I could tell you’ve had something on your mind for a while now.” Concern shone on her face.

He gave her the note. “We’re going home.”

She took a brief moment to read it. “Oh. You’re concerned about Joe. I’ve been thinking about what to do when this moment came.”

“So have I. And I still don’t know.”

Peggy looked up at him and crossed her arms. “You trust him, yes? You’d consider him a dear friend?” Steve nodded. “You believe everything that he’s told you? And everything he hasn’t?”

“Yes, I do. Where are you going with this?”

She held up a hand. “I haven’t spent enough time with him to know whether what he’s said is true. I like him, but I trust you. And since you trust him, then I’ll have to trust him, too.” She paused here to take a breath. “And I know someone who owes me a favor. Someone who is very good at falsifying papers. Good enough for the SSR to know about them.”

Steve let the weight of what she was implying sink in. “You’re incredible,” he said before wrapping his arms around her.

“I know. If you ask him while I’m gone, I can get this whole process started later tonight.”

Steve walked Peggy out, and he and Joe waved their goodbyes to Peggy, Dum-Dum, and Jim as she started up the Jeep.

When they returned inside, Joe retreated upstairs while Steve set to work cleaning up the kitchen. He thought about how Joe would react to the news while he washed and dried the dishes. When everything was put away, the sky was growing darker outside, and Steve went upstairs to Joe’s room.

Joe was flipping through a magazine on his bed, back propped against the wall, one leg stretched out, the other hanging lazily off the edge. Steve knocked on the open door, and Joe waggled his foot in greeting.

“Joe, I need to ask you something. It’s important.”

Steve’s serious tone broke Joe’s attention from his magazine. He frowned up at Steve and answered, “Okay.”

Steve thought over how to approach the subject. He opened his mouth and let it hang open, unable to find the words. Joe moved to the edge of the bed and gestured to the space beside him. Steve took the invitation gratefully. He sat carefully next to him and laced his fingers together.

“I never asked you about your past. Not since we first met. But I need to make sure--understand, I need to be very sure about this--you don’t want to go back to Russia, do you?”

“I can’t, Steve. I can’t go back there.” Joe’s voice was both soft and hard at the same time as he shook his head back and forth.

“Okay. That’s all I needed to know.” He looked at the wall where they’d pinned up the pictures they’d torn from magazines. He saw the photo of the Brooklyn Bridge, and he got up to point at the picture. “Remember how I told you I was from New York? From Brooklyn?”

“Yeah. One of five boroughs, but Brooklyn’s ‘the only one that really matters.’” Joe smirked as he recited Steve’s words. “How could I forget?”

“And I told you I’d eventually be going back. Well, I’m going home next week, Joe.”

Realization came into Joe’s eyes, quickly followed by sadness. “You’re going home. So where does that leave me?”

The words were coming easily to Steve now. His heart was beating very fast in his chest, and a vision of a future that could be was starting to take form in the front of his mind. “That’s the thing. How would you like to come home with me? To come back to America?”

Joe stared blankly back at him. “What?”

Steve quickly moved back to sit beside Joe again. “Come to Brooklyn with me. You can start a new life with people who care about you.”

He huffed out one quick laugh and asked, “How? You need papers to go to another country. I don’t have a name, Steven.”

“Sure you do. You’re Joe,” he countered matter-of-factly, tapping the back of his hand on Joe’s chest.

He rolled his eyes and reached around for his magazine. “Joe Blow,” he spat. “Or Burgess, depending on the company we’re keeping.”

“Exactly. The surname needs a little work, but you get the idea.” Joe rolled his eyes again and scoffed, so Steve shook his knee to grab his attention. “I’m not joking. If you want to come back to Brooklyn with me, Peggy knows someone who can get you papers.”

Joe stared at him slack-jawed. Steve realized he was still holding onto his knee and swiftly took his hand back. Joe didn’t seem to notice. He narrowed his eyes and chewed on his cheek, continuing to stare at Steve.

Finally, he had an answer for him. “Yes. I want to go to America with you,” he said slowly. His face broke out into a wide smile reaching from ear to ear.

Steve threw his head back and laughed, completely elated at the fact that Joe wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. He wrapped his arms around the man and hugged him briefly before pulling back and clapping him on the shoulder. “That’s swell.”

Joe shared in Steve’s enthusiasm, and the two laughed until they were breathless and red in the cheeks. Steve realized he couldn’t look away from Joe, all bright-eyed and buzzing with joy. And he found himself hoping that maybe, maybe, maybe Joe felt the same about him in this moment.

What exactly was he feeling, anyway?

But then his hopes were answered, and he wasn’t thinking anymore. Joe shifted closer, his hand brushing against Steve’s own. Suddenly, his heart was dancing in his chest.

Steve let himself be drawn in. His eyes wandered across Joe’s face, studying him, drinking him in. God, he was beautiful. Steve had seen that when they first met, when Joe was dirty and sweaty and had holes in his clothes. But now...now he was looking clean and healthy and happy. He lingered on Joe’s lips. When Joe raked his teeth across his bottom lip, Steve suddenly found himself wanting to kiss him.

And that could never, ever happen. This wasn’t supposed to happen.

The reality of where he was, _who_ he was, came crashing back down in an instant. The cold realization of what he was feeling for Joe struck him in the pit of his stomach. Steve reeled and immediately slid to the far end of the bed, trying to put as much distance as he could between them. He lurched and stood, swaying unsteadily for a brief second before choking out, “I have to go.” He made his escape without looking back.

Steve had to get some air. He couldn’t breathe inside this suddenly stuffy house. He stumbled downstairs and swung open the front door. The cool night air was a welcome blessing in light of the panic clawing its way up his throat, curling its fingers around his neck. He stepped outside and didn’t stop walking until the house was far behind him, and he could finally catch his breath.

Steven Grant Rogers was no queer. It just wasn’t in him. He had never felt like that around men.

Or had he?

Sure, he had always admired them, liked to look at them--Christ, all that time spent people watching at Coney Island--but he was an artist. He knew how to appreciate the physical appearance of something. He loved to look at trees, too. Didn’t mean he wanted to go steady with a birch or nothing.

It’s not like there was anything wrong with people of that sort.

But if Steve was, in fact...if he was...

Did all this panic, all this terror and anxiety that was swirling around inside his head...did this make him a hypocrite? How could he say there was nothing wrong with it when the idea that he might be one of those kind of men had put the fear of God in him?

He breathed out a shaky laugh at the thought. Fear of God. That was a whole entire other set of problems that Steve was not at all prepared to confront at this moment. If he thought too much about it, he might go into a spiral, and then he’d be out here until daybreak.

He had to steady himself. He breathed in slowly through his nose, counting one, two, three, four, five. And held it, one, two, three, four, five. He exhaled on the same count and repeated the cycle over and over.

Steve rubbed his eyes and dragged his hands down his face, staring at the pretty little house he would eventually have to go back to.

He was Captain America. He had faced down Hydra and the Red Skull. He had knocked out Hitler more than a dozen times. Now that he could breathe, he steeled himself and marched back to the house before he could lose his resolve.

When Steve stepped inside the house, he heard Joe in the kitchen. He headed towards the sound, catching Joe just as he was leaving.

Joe didn’t seem offended at Steve’s abrupt departure not even ten minutes ago. When he saw Steve, the corner of his mouth turned up, and he shook his head. Steve thought that he seemed more disappointed than anything. Joe started to gently maneuver himself past Steve, but it was a tiny hallway, and they were both big men.

He didn’t get very far.

Steve took full advantage of this situation. He put his hands on either side of Joe’s face and didn’t hesitate before kissing him deeply. Joe was taken aback at Steve’s change in feelings, but it didn’t take long for him to return the kiss with full force.

Steve broke apart for a quick breath, and then Joe’s hand was on the back of his neck, pulling him back in. It was a fevered, heady embrace in a cramped space not meant for fevered, heady embraces.

And it was the most freeing moment of Steve’s entire life.

He pulled back with a gasp, trying to catch his breath. He stared at Joe’s reddened lips and cheeks while Joe ran his fingers through Steve’s hair at the nape of his neck.

“I don’t know. I don’t know how this is gonna work. But we gotta make it work.”

Joe’s eyes dropped to Steve’s lips, and a smile began to spread across his face. “I’m not going anywhere.”

His words made Steve so entirely happy, and the only thing he wanted to do was kiss him again. But a hideous screech of static came blaring out from the radio upstairs, and it didn’t stop.

Maybe Morita did more damage to the thing in his attempt to help Steve.

“What the hell is it doing?” Joe yelled over the noise. His hand was over his ear, and Steve was covering his own ear, too. The acoustics in this hallway must’ve directed the noise to one side of their bodies more than the other.

“I’m gonna need you to cut the power in case I can’t fix it,” Steve said to Joe before running upstairs. He careened around the doorway into the office, hands reaching for anything they could reach. But the outburst of static stopped before he laid a finger on any of the equipment.

“Try him again, but this time try not to overload the whole channel,” urged a woman with a smokey voice, pain evident in her tone.

“It was an accident,” answered a very annoyed man. “Steve?! Ste--goddammit!” He was cut short by some commotion in the background.

The smokey-voiced woman came on again. “Come on, Rogers. Where are you?”

Steve’s hand hovered over the receiver. He didn’t know these people, but they sounded like they knew him. More importantly, they sounded like they needed him.

He hit the button to transmit. “This is Captain Rogers. What’s going on? What’s your location? How copy?”

“Captain Rog...? Steve? Finally. We’ve been trying to radio you for almost an hour,” said the annoyed man.

“I’m sorry. I’ve been...here,” Steve responded uncertainly.

“Where’s ‘here?’” asked the woman. “You went dark, and then we never heard from you.”

As unlikely as it was, maybe they were looking for another Captain Steve Rogers? Another Captain Steve Rogers in the middle of Berlin...

Steve heard someone enter the room behind him, and he turned to see Joe staring at him, looking just as confused as he was feeling.

“Steve?” Joe breathed.

And then the name that fell from Steve’s lips felt wholly natural and familiar. He had muttered it, whispered it, shouted it, laughed it a hundred times over since they were both kids in Brooklyn. He had dreamed it, mourned it, celebrated it. “Bucky?” He pushed his chair back and stood but couldn’t move his feet.

“Where are we?” Bucky asked--’cause this was Bucky, Buck was here--and walked closer, looking all around the room as he did.

“Germany, except...not Germany,” was Steve’s reply and suddenly there was a pistol in Bucky’s hand, who was immediately on the defensive. “Buck--”

Buck nodded to the radio and cut him off. “Who’s that?”

Steve looked back at the radio, memories of a facility in Jersey, of Sam, of Wanda and Natasha, spinning wildly around his brain. “Zemo.”

“What’s he saying?”

Steve quickly shook his head. “No, that’s not Zemo. It’s Sam and Natasha. They need our help. How do we get out of here?”

Bucky moved to stand alongside the window, carefully keeping out of sight. He leaned over to look outside, but it hadn’t changed. “I dunno. How do you get out of Germany-But-Not-Germany?”

Steve snatched up the receiver. “Sam? We’re in Berlin.”

“That’s impossible. There’s no way in hell you got across the ocean in that time,” answered Sam. “What about Barnes? Is he with you?”

From the window, Bucky shouted, “Here. Sounds like we’ve been apart a while. Missing me, Wilson?”

Sam groaned loud and clear. “Well, damn. Sorry everyone, but it sounds like Barnes is okay.” His relieved tone didn’t match his supposed disappointment.

“Missed you too, buddy,” Bucky said. “Anybody know just exactly where the hell me and Steve--”

“You said Berlin. What do you mean by Berlin?” interrupted Natasha.

Steve’s fingers curled tighter around the very real and palpable piece of metal in his hand. “I mean 1946 Berlin. Everything, it’s--it’s all here. But I don’t think we travelled through time. We wouldn’t be talking if we had. Where’s Wanda?”

He heard Natasha call Wanda’s name. “Her comms got damaged in the blast,” she explained.

“What blast?!” Steve asked.

Wanda’s voice came next over the radio. “I’m alright. What’s going on with you?”

If she said she was okay, Steve could only take her word for now. “Bucky and I are stuck somewhere.”

Natasha said something inaudible. Wanda came back on comms and responded, “Okay, I can try to help. Just tell me where you are.”

“Don’t worry about us. I need you to be prepared in case Zemo tries this again on one or all of you. It’s some sort of...almost like a vision, I guess. I’m not sure. But me and Buck will find our own way out of here, now that we know what’s going on.”

“Do we know what’s going on?” Bucky asked, too low for the others to hear.

Steve shrugged and spoke once more into the receiver. “We’ll be in touch as soon as possible.” He turned the radio off without waiting for a response. When he looked up, he found Bucky staring at him.

“Steve,” murmured Bucky quietly. The word bounced off the walls and wrapped itself around Steve in all its warmth and glory.

“Hi,” came his breathless reply.

Bucky reached behind him and tucked his pistol in his waistband. He took a few careful steps in Steve’s direction, and Steve did the same.

They didn’t move any further towards each other.

Buck stretched his arm out and rested his hand against the wall. He ran his eyes up the wall, along the ceiling, across the room, over the floor, carefully detailing every aspect of this room. Everything except for Steve. “I kind of don’t wanna go. What does that say about me?”

And the look on Buck’s face made him wanna stay here, too. More than anything. “I’m not sure. When you figure it out, let me know, ‘cause I feel the same way.”

The comment drew one humorless laugh from Bucky. He frowned at something over Steve’s shoulder, and Steve followed his line of sight to a rusty water pipe affixed to the wall, starkly out of place in the small office.

“You see that too, right?” Bucky asked.

Steve quickly strode over and reached out to touch it. The pipe was cool and damp. Keeping his fingers on it, he closed his eyes. Far, far away, as though in a dream, he could hear the faint drip of water.

“You think, maybe, because we know that it isn’t real--”

“This world’s gonna fall apart,” Bucky finished. “Flashes from wherever the hell we really are are gonna start coming through.”

“Should’ve known something wasn’t right here.”

“Why? ‘Cause we almost had a happy ending?” Bucky muttered.

It hurt, but Steve didn’t disagree. “I was missing patches of time.”

“Huh. So was I. Never said anything about it. Maybe I should have. Could’ve gotten out of here sooner, maybe.”

Could they keep it together if they wanted to? If they wanted to stay, if they had the option to, could everything remain just as it was?

Was it possible?

“Guess I never should’ve fixed that radio, huh?”

The sound of Jim Morita’s voice was a shock to both of them, and they turned to see their buddy walking into the office.

“What’s happen--” Bucky started, but then Steve blinked and he was gone.

No. “Bucky? Bucky!” he called frantically. “Buck!”

“He’s okay. We just wanted to talk to you alone for a minute,” Jim said.

And Dum-Dum Dugan edged his way into the room from behind Jim. “Thanks for moving out the way, buddy,” he muttered, lightly shoving Jim. Then he looked at Steve. “Ah, Cap. You just had to keep going back to that damn radio. Couldn’t leave well enough alone.”

Jim shrugged and interjected, “I don’t know, I kinda screwed that one up. I didn’t know helping him would end up like this.”

“What’s going on? What is this?” Steve asked, eyes dancing between Jim and Dum-Dum.

“We’re asking you to stay. Leave it alone,” said Dum-Dum.

Steve shoved his way past them. “Get out of my way. Bucky!” he shouted. He ran down the stairs and called Bucky’s name again. When he saw Peggy standing in the sitting room, he stopped. She was near the picture window, staring out. He walked to the center of the room and waited.

When she spoke, her voice was very quiet. “You went down in the Valkyrie.”

“You remember that?”

She continued, “We never saw the end of the war together. We never made it to 1946 together.”

Steve breathed in slowly through his nose. “No.” He let it all out in a sigh. “Peggy...” She turned around at the sound of her name in his mouth. She didn’t move, so Steve went to her. “I don’t know what’s happening.”

“It’s all coming apart.” And then her lips turned up in the softest smile. It cut straight through Steve’s heart.

“Did you know?”

Peggy tipped her head back, eyes narrowing. “I think, all along, I sort of did. But I wasn’t aware of it. I didn’t understand it.”

“I’m sorry to have to do this again. To have to say goodbye.”

“We could have been happy. We still could be.”

She was looking at him with such sadness and longing and adoration in her eyes. This world existed in a way he didn’t entirely understand. This wasn’t a vision, or a hallucination, or a dream.

He took her hand in his, ran his thumb across the back of her hand, felt her soft skin under his touch. He could smell her perfume. The scent of gardenia, bergamot, and rose clung to her neck and wrists. She applied it every morning before heading to the office. When he touched her hair, it was silky, the brushed out waves smooth under his fingers. Everything about her--her laugh, her eyes, the weight of her body against his, the gentle way she kissed him so as not to leave a lipstick stain--he could touch, taste, smell, see, hear all of it. This was Peggy. _His_ Peggy. He couldn’t deny that. Everything felt too unbearably real. And yet...

“It wouldn’t have been real.” He sighed and squeezed his eyes tightly shut. He wasn’t sure what he was hoping to accomplish. She’d still be there when he opened them; he could still feel her hand in his. When he opened his eyes, her eyebrows were knit together.

“Does it need to be?”

He nodded. “He’s real. And I love him.”

Peggy reached up to straighten his collar. She brushed away a wrinkle before letting her hand rest on his chest. She gazed up at him with eyes full of love and understanding. “I know. I can see it in the way you look at him. In how he looks at you.”

“I’ve always loved him.” Steve could see that now. He had loved Bucky Barnes as a friend, as a brother, as a stranger, and, at last, as a lover. Steve trailed his fingertips along her forearm, up towards her shoulder. He traced along her collarbone. In another lifetime, in another world, maybe he and Peggy are still together and happy and alive. Where Bucky was in that universe, he didn’t want to think about, but the thought gave him a small sense of peace. “And I’ll always love you.”

She gently pulled him in for a kiss. Steve met her lips, pressing his lips to hers, softly at first. He deepened the kiss with a growing fierceness. This was the last time he was ever going to be able to hold her like this.

Then Steve forced himself to break the kiss and take a step back. “So where do we go from here?”

“--ing?” Bucky was suddenly behind them, finishing his question from earlier as though he’d never left.

Steve turned around in time to see Bucky start at the sudden change, from his perspective, in their surroundings. Steve blinked, and just as Bucky had suddenly disappeared earlier, Dum-Dum and Jim were suddenly in the room.

This time, Sarah Rogers was with them.

“Mom?” Steve asked in disbelief. “This is low, even for you, Dum-Dum.”

“Hi, sweetheart.” Slowly, she stepped close to Steve. She reached her hand up and rested it on his cheek. Steve covered her hand with his own and leaned into her touch.

“Sorry I didn’t get to make it home to you, Mom.”

She looked so lovely. She looked so healthy. “There’s still time. You can still come home.”

He smiled at her before gently removing her hand from his cheek. “You know that I can’t.”

And then Gabe Jones, Montgomery Falsworth, and Jacques Dernier were there in a millisecond, standing behind Dum-Dum and Jim.

Jim sighed before remarking, “We really hoped she would be able to convince you.”

Gabe stepped forward. “But I guess you’re really not that kind of guy. They didn’t make you Captain America for no reason, did they?”

“Steve,” Bucky said, and Steve saw him quickly reach behind him, pulling out his pistol. He raised it halfway, hand stopping at waist-level.

Monty put up his hands when he caught sight of the gun. “I don’t think you want to do that, Barnes.”

Bucky flashed a smile at their old friends, at Steve’s mother. “Where were the rest of you all this time? God, I miss you guys. Every day. You have no idea how much it kills me. But me and Stevie got places to be.”

“What’s the plan, Buck?” Steve asked.

“I figure we’re in some sort of sleep state, right? We just gotta find a way to wake up.” He raised the gun a bit higher, and Monty began to cautiously move towards Bucky.

“I wish we could’ve had more time,” Mom said.

“Me, too.”

Steve felt Peggy’s hand on his arm. He looked over his shoulder, and she said, “It was selfish of me to hope, even for a moment, that you’d stay.”

“I almost did. Goodbye, Peggy.”

As Steve turned back, he saw Monty lunge for the gun. But Bucky was quicker.

He aimed at the ceiling and fired.

 _BANG_.

Steve came to on a concrete floor. He quickly sat up and saw Bucky off to his left, pushing himself to standing. Somewhere behind him, he heard that faint drip of water he’d briefly honed in on earlier.

He jumped to his feet and raised his hand to his ear. “Rogers here. Anyone copy?”

Natasha quickly answered back, “I copy. Where are you?”

He looked around at their surroundings. It was dark, dusty, and damp. There was a water heater in the corner and something that could’ve been a generator maybe. There was a breaker box on the wall next to a panel of switches and buttons. Further down, rows of storage lockers. “Looks like some sort of maintenance room. Possibly basement level.”

“I think I got something,” Bucky called. There was a set of metal double doors, and he was trying to pull them open. “Come take a look at this.”

Natasha responded “Well, it sounds like you guys aren’t in any immediate danger. We’ll be--”

“But we are!” Sam interrupted. “You two get your asses up here as soon as possible. This sun guy...” he trailed off, and there was a cackle in the background. “You better not burn my wings, you son of a bitch!”

Bucky peered through the crack between the doors. “Sounds like we’d better get out there and save Wilson.” Steve jogged up behind him, and Bucky pointed out the chains on the outside of the door handles. “Looks like they’ve been melted together.”

“Probably by the ‘sun guy’ that’s giving Sam a hard time right now.”

“Makes sense.” Bucky stepped back and settled into a ready stance. “Here, let’s kick together. On three. One...”

Steve lowered himself into a similar stance. He raised up onto the toes of his rear leg. “Two...”

“Three!” they shouted together, each striking near the handles of the door with the heels of their boots. They heard the creak of metal on the other side, but the door was still shut.

“Again,” Bucky ordered.

They had to kick two more times before the mass of melted metal gave way. The latch was broken during the ordeal, and Bucky easily swung the doors open wide. The two men sprinted down the empty hallway before them and found a flight of stairs around the corner at the end.

On their way up the stairs, Bucky felt it was necessary to comment, “Hey, Steve? Your German is shit.”

“ _Mein Deutsch is sehr gut_. Zemo erased your English. You don’t think he could’ve hacked away at my German while he was at it?”

“If that’s the excuse you’re going with, okay then. I’m just saying,” he laughed.

Steve and Bucky raced down another hallway, glowing red ‘Exit’ signs leading the way. “Shut up,” Steve said in between his own laughs.

They burst out the door and found themselves in an empty parking lot. Across the street, however, on a rundown basketball court, was where the action was. Steve and Bucky immediately began running towards their friends.

Natasha was engaged in hand-to-hand with a tree man. One ankle and wrist were bound by weeds growing from cracks in the concrete. She raised her other wrist and fired her Widow’s Bite at him.

He stopped short and glanced down at where she had hit him in the chest. It had cracked his woodlike exterior. “Ow. Were you expecting more from me?”

“Made you look,” she said with a smirk.

Sam swooped low, pausing next to the tree man.

“Eh?” was all he could say before Sam zoomed forward, grabbing Natasha on the way. His momentum tore her free from the binding weeds.

From behind Sam, a large glowing man wearing a metal contraption released a burst of energy, clearly aiming for Sam. But he was long gone, leaving only the tree where he stood.

“No, watch it!” the tree shouted, but it was too late. He was hit with the shot of heat, and then half of his body was burning. “I’m on fire! Help!” he yelled. “ _Help!_ ” He ran around in circles a few times before dropping to the ground and rolling back and forth.

From the sidelines, Baron Helmut Zemo watched the whole fiasco go down with a sense of such deep disappointment that it was palpable beneath that purple hood. “No, no, no! You idiots! Firebrand, I told you to forget about the birdman and go after the girl! Plantman, you were supposed to help him! And Flying Tiger...oh, Flying Tiger...”

On the other side of the court, Wanda had this tiger in a blue wingsuit suspended in the air, encased in a swarm of red energy. He flailed his claws about him to no avail.

Bucky and Steve had long since reached the basketball court, and they couldn’t help but just stand there and watch as this all happened.

Zemo was beginning to holler something about his embarrassment of a team again when Steve shouted, “Zemo!”

From the sky, Sam called out, “Hey, Steve! Nice of you to join us!” He descended to gently let Natasha down near Wanda.

Zemo almost started at the sight of Steve and Bucky back on the battlefield. “Captain America? The Winter Soldier? But how? Firebrand, you had one job!” He drew a pair of dual pistols and started firing.

Bucky jumped in front of Steve, using his metal arm to deflect the bullets. They ran for cover behind a low brick wall, and Wanda launched Flying Tiger into Zemo, knocking him off his feet.

Just as Flying Tiger began hurtling through the air, a police car came speeding down the street. It screeched to a stop in front of the court, and a young officer stepped out, gun in hand. He crouched behind his car.

“Agent Lugo!” Steve shouted.

“Agent?” he answered back, confused. He shook his head before saying, “Where’d you come from? Your friends had me go and search for you. Good to have you guys back.”

Zemo got to his feet, shoving the tiger off of him. “Get off of me! Go do something useful!”

“What do you wanna do about these yahoos?” Bucky asked Steve. Zemo picked up one of his pistols and fired in the direction of Bucky’s voice.

Steve turned around and crept to the end of the wall they were crouched behind. “You got a shot on him?”

Bucky had pulled out his own sidearm the minute Zemo started using guns. “Yep.” He straightened his arms, readying to aim up and over the wall.

“Great. You start shooting when I run.”

Officer Lugo could see Steve and Bucky gearing up to do something, but he wasn’t near enough to hear them discuss their plan. “What are you doing? Neither of you have vests. Stay down!”

Steve raced out into the open, and Zemo took the bait. He was good, but it wasn’t a guarantee that he could hit a moving target 100% of the time. Especially when that moving target was Steve at a sprint.

And he didn’t. The bullets whizzed behind Steve, close but no cigar. He heard Bucky fire three times in quick succession, and then Zemo fell to one knee.

“ _Dammit_ ,” Zemo groaned.

Flying Tiger roared when he saw his boss hit the ground. He launched into the air using the jets on the backs of his boots. Two swift shots from Bucky, and Tiger fell to Earth with a heavy thud, where he lay in a pitiful heap, moaning under his breath.

Officer Lugo holstered his weapon and strode onto the court to survey the scene.

It was anything but a gracious defeat. Zemo and Flying Tiger were out of commission for the time being. Firebrand and Plantman were still in play, but they were currently occupied with keeping each other at bay.

“I’ll just burn all your little weeds and flowers like I burned you, Plantman!” Firebrand yelled, flaring almost blindingly bright.

Plantman brought forth a whole mess of weeds and roots around Firebrand, destroying the concrete in process. “Go ahead! There’s earth all around us. But how long can you burn?”

Sam was back on the ground, and Steve quickly checked in with him before walking over to meet Lugo.

Lugo started telling Steve off when he was close enough. “You’re mad, do you know that? Couldn’t even fire a shot off, ‘cause I was afraid of hitting your crazy ass running around out there in my line of fire.”

“I’m sorry, officer. Guess I’ve been a little reckless lately.”

He shrugged and chewed his lip. “Yeah, well. I can’t believe I’m lecturing Captain America. Things could’ve gone worse. Neighborhood’s been pushing for a new court out here.” He pointed up at the netless hoops. “Look at that, kids don’t even have nets. City’s really got no choice but to lay down a new court now. All this broken concrete’s too hazardous for children.” He nodded, checking out the damage.

Steve gestured to the villains around them. “You okay to handle these guys?”

“Yep. My sergeant already called in the situation to S.H.I.E.L.D. Won’t be long ‘til they’re here. Which means you should get gone, I suppose.” He offered his hand to Steve. “Thanks, Cap. Just try to be a little less reckless, yeah?”

Sam’s voice came over comms then. “Quinjet’s already on the way. Had to land it down the street a ways.”

Steve returned Lugo’s handshake. “I’ll try. Can’t say I’ve got the best influence around me, though,” he said, glancing over the officer’s shoulder at Bucky, who was currently walking away with Zemo’s pistols securely fastened into straps on his legs.

“Take care of yourself, ya hear? I gotta go radio this in to my sergeant.”

When he was gone, Zemo decided to speak up. “Why couldn’t you just leave things as they were, Captain? You had the woman of your dreams, your old pal back at your side, a story that...really should have kept you occupied longer. I gave you everything you wanted.”

“I know. That was your mistake.” Steve crouched down to continue to talk to Zemo. “How did you do it? What was that?”

Zemo turned his head away without an answer.

Steve didn’t see any use in trying to push him, and he honestly didn’t really feel like it. He stood up and started to walk away.

“Argh!” Zemo grunted behind him. Steve turned around and saw him toss a glowing blue shard on the ground. “S.H.I.E.L.D. can have it. It failed me.”

Steve marched over and kicked the shard further away from Zemo in case he decided to try something. “What is this?” he demanded.

“A shard of a Cosmic Cube. A complete Cosmic Cube might be able to keep an entire community of people in their own world for months. But this? It barely held onto two people for forty-five minutes.”

With the knowledge of what he was handling, Steve gently picked it up and handed it over to Officer Lugo. He walked back to the court, and Wanda and Natasha were heading in his direction. Natasha had her hand on Wanda’s lower back, and Wanda leaned over to whisper something. Whatever it was had Natasha in a fit of laughter. She motioned to Steve that she’d be back, and Steve nodded, appreciating this moment to himself in the aftermath of everything.

But now that he was alone, a million thoughts and memories came rushing back to him.

Steve ran his hands through his hair, brushing it out of his eyes and back behind his ears. It was an odd feeling to suddenly have long hair again. He rubbed his chin, shifting his jaw back and forth. He suddenly had a beard again, too.

“You good?” Steve heard Natasha ask from behind him. He turned around to find her watching him with a calculating eye.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine,” he answered, quite obviously not fine.

She cocked her head, and with a smirk, she said, “You know, you’re still a terrible liar.”

He couldn’t help but grin and nod. She wasn’t wrong. “I’m okay, Natasha. Really. I just need to talk to Bucky about something. Go ahead and get on the Quinjet. We’ll be along in a minute.”

“Alright,” she sing-songed doubtfully, but she respected Steve’s wishes and didn’t linger, walking past him. Her head rotated as she kept her eyes trained on him. When he waved, she nodded and turned away to board the aircraft.

Steve left the court and found Bucky kneeling in the street policing his brass. Buck raised two fingers in acknowledgment and kept his eyes on the ground, scanning for more empty casings. Steve brushed some imaginary dust off his chest while he waited for Bucky to finish his clean-up. He crossed his arms in front of him. Then he clasped his hands behind his back. That wasn’t comfortable either, so he let one hand rest on his belt while the other hung loosely at his side.

He didn’t know what to do with his hands.

Finally, Bucky stood, index finger tapping each bit of brass as he counted softly under his breath, “...three, four, five.” He pocketed the casings. “That’s all of ‘em.”

Steve shifted again. One hand went to brush his hair from his forehead, and the other lifted in a part-wave, part-open-hand, part-handshake, part-something-or-other. “Hi,” he started lamely.

Bucky quirked a brow at Steve’s pose. “Hi,” he replied while biting back a smile.

Steve quickly removed his earpiece, then he dropped his hands to his waist and stood arms akimbo. “So, uh...a lot of stuff happened.” He nodded and gazed off to the side, trying to act just this side of disinterested.

Bucky followed suit and removed his earpiece before answering. “You got that right. We stopped Zemo and his cronies. Again. Won’t be long ‘til he’s back to raising a ruckus, though.” Steve gave him a look, and Bucky feigned surprise. His hand shot to his chest, fingers splaying open. “Oh, were you talking about all that other stuff back in La La Land? Yeah, whole lot of stuff happened in there, too. I seem to remember you running out the room like a hellhound was on your tail the minute we were alone together.”

Steve twisted his mouth up and squinted. “Oh, we were alone plenty of times before that. And besides, I wasn’t moving that fast.”

“If it was a cartoon, you’d have left dust clouds in your wake.” Bucky smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners.

Steve licked his lips, and he tried to picture the moment from Bucky’s point of view. He realized Bucky was right. It must have looked a little ridiculous. “So I was moving a little fast. But can you blame me? I had a lot on my mind.”

“No. No, I get it. You know, I’m not...okay. I’m still learning how to deal with--with being--you know. You know?”

“I do know,” Steve said with a nod.

Bucky threw his head back and laughed. “A hundred years isn’t enough time to figure this stuff out, apparently.”

“We can figure it out together, if you’d like.” And suddenly Steve’s hands were twitching to move again, but he stood fast.

Buck pursed his lips and bobbed his head side to side, pretending to weigh his options. “I don’t know. I mean, that depends. Are you gonna zip away like Speedy Gonzales again?”

“Maybe I just like the chase,” he murmured, smooth and low and natural. Maybe this could be a lot easier when he wasn’t overthinking things.

“Aw, you ole romantic, you.” Bucky swayed and playfully swatted at Steve’s chest. He shoved his hands in his pockets and started walking in the direction of the Quinjet. He looked back at Steve, beckoning him to follow with a nod of his head.

Steve didn’t hesitate.

The two easily fell into step alongside one another. Steve lightly touched Bucky’s shoulder, and they passed a smile between them.

When they boarded the aircraft, they saw Natasha kneeling in front of Wanda, examining a scratch running from her temple to down below her cheekbone. The first aid kit was open on Natasha’s thigh, and she tore open an alcohol wipe. Sam was in the cockpit, sliding off his goggles and unhooking his wing pack. He placed his gear carefully on the floor before settling into the pilot’s seat.

Bucky grabbed some water bottles and started passing them around while Steve went to stand next to Sam.

“Everyone ready?” he asked his pilot.

Sam looked up at him to respond with, “Just waiting on you.”

When he nodded, Sam flipped a switch and raised the throttle. The floor beneath him started to move, and he had to shift his weight to remain steady. He watched the basketball court fall away outside the window, downtown Jersey growing smaller the higher they climbed.

Steve took a look around at his friends. Sam. Natasha and Wanda. Bucky. He grinned and turned back to face the window. “Alright. Let’s go home.”


End file.
